Reframing Innovation: How Design-Led Initiatives Can Lead to Disruptive Impact

The Electrical and Computer Engineering department will host a seminar featuring Dr. Anijo Punnen Mathew, Academic Director of Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Associate Professor at the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology. The seminar will be titled Reframing Innovation: How Design-Led Initiatives Can Lead to Disruptive Impact.

Abstract

Conceiving and implementing a truly great idea that leads to disruptive impact is no easy task; complexities associated with stakeholders, scales of implementation, and outdated impact models can deter anyone from approaching such problems. Yet today, the infrastructural, technological, and economic climate is ripe for even small entrepreneurs to tackle complex problems with limited resources.

In this talk, Professor Anijo Mathew, the Academic Director for the new Kaplan Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, will discuss how design-led initiatives can change the direction of innovation and entrepreneurship. Pulling from 10 years of experience in corporate, non-profit, and social contexts, he will show how both small and large organizations around the world have reframed problems from a human-centered perspective to achieve truly disruptive impact and how we can learn from these to build new companies that do the same.

Speaker’s Biography

Prof. Anijo Punnen Mathew is a tenured associate professor at the Institute of Design, where his research evaluates new semantic appropriations of urban spaces as enabled by technology and media convergence. He is also the founder and chief experience officer of Vamonde, a Chicago startup and storytelling app.

Mathew has led research teams on projects with the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, the Chicago Tribune, Accenture, Choose Chicago, and Chicago Loop Alliance (CLA). He was invited to help design urban interventions for the Chicago Cultural Plan 2012. He has taught at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business through the D4Lab initiative at the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Widely published, Mathew regularly consults on innovation projects with organizations worldwide. With companies such as Godrej & Boyce in India and the Far Eastern Group in Taiwan, he helps leadership teams identify and execute strategic innovation projects. He has consulted with Accenture, Hyatt, Motorola Mobility, the Hong Kong Design Centre, Urban Redevelopment Authority [Singapore]/Singapore River One, Gensler, Chicago Public Schools, Chicago Artists Coalition, and the Chicago Architecture Foundation. His projects have been exhibited at the National Museum of Mexican Art, the Old Town School of Folk Music, Chicago City Hall, and the Chicago Cultural Center.

Note: This seminar is open to everyone at Illinois Tech. For more information regarding this seminar, please get in touch with Dr. Mahesh Krishnamurthy in ECE, IIT. Phone: 7-7232, Email: kmahesh@ece.iit.edu